Also, in the first of a series of reports in this journal, Phillips et al. examine “the six most essential questions in psychiatric diagnosis.” They identify these as: 1) the nature of a mental disorder; 2) the definition of mental disorder; 3) whether DSM-5 should assume a cautious, conservative posture or an assertive, transformative posture; 4) the role of pragmatic considerations in the construction of DSM-5; 5) the issue of utility of the DSM (is it more for clinicians or researchers?) and 6) the possibility and advisability of designing a different diagnostic system.

Articles that came out in Social Science and Medicine this January include an analysis of how American participants in randomized controlled trials view placebos. Among the authors’ findings they note: “Some participants maintained a negative view of placebo effects (e.g. as illusions) that was apparently inconsistent with their other beliefs (e.g. in mind-body healing mechanisms). This may indicate a dominance of negative discourses around placebos at a socio-cultural level. Negative views of placebos are inconsistent with evidence that placebo treatments can have positive effects on symptoms.”

Also, Wilches-Gutiérrez et al. conducted a mixed-methods study of the relationship between death, holidays, and cultural conceptions of mortality in Mexico. After finding that people in Morelos, Mexico have higher mortality rates on holidays like Christmas and All Saints’ Day, researchers conducted interviews with relatives of those who had died on holidays. They report, “Our results suggest that, in the studied region, death can be interpreted as a “beautiful process,” and they explore the ways in which interviewees characterize dying on a holiday as a positively-valenced and special phenomenon. Also in the journal this month is a theoretical appraisal of medical tourism in terms of therapeutic landscapes and postcolonial theory.